Academic gathering with Lich colleagues

"Wrong!" the man replied firmly. "We are the Necromancer Figure Club, members who trust each other the most. We are the Plague Doctor's support! We can't say we're incapable! Even if we really are, the Plague Doctor won't know!"

"...That seems to make some sense."

"However, the Plague Doctor did not seek help from us, whom he trusted most, but instead chose SS. Can't you see that?"

"Because we've betrayed the president too many times and have a criminal record?"

"Naive! Do you think the Plague Doctor is such a petty person? You think the Plague Doctor is asking for help? Actually, the Plague Doctor is provoking! He's handling the trouble SS has caused with ease, and even feels it's not exciting enough, which is why he's screaming and yelling to make SS go all out!"

Shining and manipulating his body, he looked at the man in the center with astonishment.

"I see."

"I've failed in my duty to know the Plague Doctor as well as you do. Alright, let's be flexible then, what should we do?"

The two, who felt they had made a mistake, handed over the floor to Biantong, who smiled as he looked at the busy SS.

"Those buttons must be the control devices for that murderous pipeline."

The lich's soul fire is burning.

"Let the storm rage on!"

Inside the pipe, the white, reflective door grew larger and larger in his field of vision, and Lyle finally heard the heavenly sound.

"All done, Lyle!"

It was an oasis in the desert, a flame in the darkness. Lyle felt an instant surge of confidence.

What should I do?

“I have rewritten your electronic disguise. Now slow down and let the Snowball Army scan your personal information. They will mistake you for me, their creator, and deactivate the attack mode. But you must remain calm and not overreact. I have cleanup as the top priority in their program.”

It seemed there was no other choice. Lyle made a quick decision, stopped, put away Nia, put down the snowball, and turned to face the large group of snowball robots.

That huge swarm of white people surged in, truly like an avalanche.

The snowball that was brought in activated the projection device, scanning the surface of Lyle and creating a blue-green data layer.

The snowball army surrounded Lyle. Their cameras had small, square tips at the bottom—the muzzles of low-energy stun guns mounted on the SS. Though low-energy, their sheer number was enough to kill any electric eel.

Lyle remained motionless, his eyes filled with the dangerous red light from a cluster of cameras that slowly approached, constantly encroaching on the space around him.

Then a scanner pops out of the camera, swinging up and down along with the camouflaged green light.

"Can you guarantee your disguise will be 100% effective, SS?"

"What do you think? I designed their scanning program. The difference between my personal information code and the magical radiation on the stained surface is quite significant. Don't worry, you won't have that on your end..."

A sudden burst of noise came through Lyle's earpiece. In the room where SS and the others were, a cacophony so loud it could be described as a riot made Lyle's ears ache.

"SS? SS!" Lyle dared not make any rash moves at this moment, because the scan had entered a critical stage.

Soon, the red glow of the snowball army turned into a reassuring blue-green light, indicating that they had deactivated their cleaning mode and Lyle was safe.

Meanwhile, SS's voice rang out again from the other side.

"I'm fine here, nothing serious."

Everything went smoothly, and Lyle walked deeper into the pipe, surrounded by a large group of snowballs.

What happened on your end?

After a moment of silence in the headset, SS finally chose to tell the truth.

“Lyle, there’s a big, bright red button on the underside of my workbench. That’s my hidden self-defense button.”

"and then?"

"Then, while I was compiling the disguise program, your... those three friends pressed the button, and they were riddled with bullets by the machine gun cameras guarding me. Now their minced meat, stuffed with bullet casings, is sprawled on my floor..."

Lyle took a deep breath and covered his face.

I'm very sorry.

"It's not a big problem."

Chapter 523 Jack

Crossing the straight crosswalk, Lyle arrived at the central conduit SS had mentioned—a conduit that stretched from the top of the tower to its base. Its function wasn't merely for air circulation; less than five meters below Lyle's feet, some purplish-brown cables pierced through invisible holes, dangling straight down into the abyss whose inner walls intermittently glowed. This was the lifeblood of the Mechanical City, the connecting conduit for all energy and data, the great artery of the Mechanical God.

The recesses in the pipes above, with their vesicle-like spheres hanging from them, are the dwellings of these snowball robots. Reaching this point means entering the pyramid's public network. Therefore, SS's connection was temporarily severed; after twelve seconds of cacophonous white noise, Lyle heard that magnetic voice again.

"Don't damage those cables when you go down, Lyle. It will cause unnecessary damage to the Mechanical City, and the surging electric arcs may also injure you."

Lyle looked down and saw that the dark cables looked like a stream falling into an abyss; the visible part was probably the height of a twenty-story building.

"There are no stairs." To be precise, there are no climbing structures or supports, excluding those cables that appear very sturdy.

Lyle clapped his hands, and in the dim light, Nia stretched out her body. Her four main tentacles tumbled in the air, their claw-like tips retracting, and the suckers on the sides of the tentacles expanded one by one, as if they were covered with lifeless eyes.

*Pop!* The sludge-covered tentacles stuck firmly to the wall. Although the sludge caused slight corrosion to the metal wall, it didn't damage the pipes and shouldn't affect the lifespan of the pipes.

"Oh, actually we have a transportation device." SS exclaimed softly, as the snowball's halo shone on Lyle's head. The snowballs were piecing themselves together, quickly transforming into a coral-shaped vertical cantilever cable car.

The snowball car's cameras all shifted to Lyle, as if inviting her. Lyle was currently suspended in mid-air under Nia's protection, her strong, powerful tentacles fixed to her back. Looking up, she could see Nia's large, orange-yellow eyes, glaring angrily at her.

"Thank you, SS. I have Nia, that's enough for me."

The descent proceeded smoothly, during which SS's astonishment was no less than Lyle's. He had indeed never infiltrated a pyramid temple, and like Lyle, he had never witnessed such magical technology.

The central duct was made of a completely different material from the ventilation ducts. It was not steel, but a kind of mechanical semi-transparent valve. At first, because the light was dim, Lyle did not notice it. It was not until he descended to a certain level that Lyle discovered that he could actually see the outside laboratory through the duct.

"It's a composite polymer material with a silicon-based molecular framework," the Snowball material analyzer explained.

Beyond the translucent pipes, the pyramid's interior is not as ornate as its exterior, but rather a series of monotonous individual laboratories divided by glass blocks. Multiple robotic arms hang from the ceiling, a stark white lab table stands, and computers, seemingly suspended, are embedded in the transparent glass, their cables extending and converging into the data stream of the central conduit. Each room is almost identically configured, appearing as if copied and pasted.

Most of the test benches were filled with irregularly shaped blocks, while robotic arms drilled and added materials from above, the experimental data transforming into electrical signals that penetrated deep into the central conduit. As Lyle approached those ports, he felt a hallucination forming in his vision. Streams of binary data appeared outside the cables, flickering in Lyle's eyes.

"SS, did you see that?" Lyle regretted asking as soon as he did. How could the camera see his hallucination?

"I saw it, the displayed data information." Unless these illusions are not illusions.

"...Is this the power of the Mechanicus Cult?"

"This is magic."

Lyle stared wide-eyed at the constantly changing 1s and 0s, racking his brains but unable to find any connection between them and any runes or spells. Until a feeling in Lyle's mind became unbearable, triggering the spellcaster's switch.

Magic perception.

That was… an anomalous magical power that felt strange to the caster—cold, stagnant, like a mass-produced machine. This rigid magical current converged at the bottom, forming a dead fountain of magic.

"This is... a magic network node?" The heavy pressure below stimulated my skin.

The ominous sign transformed into a shadowy serpent, meandering and coiling.

"No, it's just piling up massive amounts of magic power, like building blocks, and in a violent way. The Cult of Machines is researching magic power; they've found a way to turn it into a usable resource—mechanical magic power for mechanical life forms."

Those dancing characters are proof that the magic is active.

SS's voice rang out again, and Lyle could feel the shock in his heart.

"The research of No. 10001 and the God of Machines has exceeded my expectations. The practical application of magic has been completed by them."

"Didn't you already know how to use magic, SS?"

"The usefulness of one person is different from the usefulness of everyone, Lyle. This is a great advancement. It's ridiculous that I was still complaining about whether the God of Machines would shut down. They're already so far ahead."

"Let me put it this way, Lyle. The Mechanical City is currently in the late stage of industrialization."

"And now, this pyramid, this huge research and development lab will make the time of the Cult of Machines fly by. Perhaps the next second we will enter the information age, or even the intelligent age. We will completely transcend this era of magical bondage."

SS's hypothesis is correct; as Lyle continues to decline, the information resonance caused by that magic is constantly evolving.

At first it was characters, then a series of codes, then a voice recording, and finally a large number of layers and programs.

Near the bottom, besides a large patch of ball lightning, Lyle also heard a voice.

【Who are you? 】

Lyle didn't pay much attention at first, treating it as just a repeated audio recording.

Why are you here?

Stop going down.

"what?"

Don't go any further, you reptile.

Lyle looked at the enormous tentacles behind him, which were probably being treated as a single entity. SS's voice came into Lyle's ear.

“That’s a new mechanical intelligence, Lyle, he’s like me! A consciousness with independent thought.” SS’s words were very excited. “He actually created another consciousness. I thought I would… talk to him, Lyle. Tell him, Lyle, tell him I’m his brother, a mechanical life form with a body.”

Lyle said so.

"Hello, unknown or unnamed new individual, I am SS-type No. 1, your brother."

[SS? Brother?]

"Yes, do you have a name? Did Executor 10001 give you one?"

I have a name, I am %#￥%#￥%@%＊&＊#￥%@%……

[Jack.]

The mechanical sound was extremely cold.

Chapter 524 First Contact

Jack's voice was quite childish, sounding like that of a teenager going through puberty, a transitional phase from a high-pitched to a deep voice, blurring the lines between male and female. Jack's voice was the second most childish voice Lyle had ever heard in this world; the first was Nia's soft, childlike voice, and even the voice of the light bat Grape was much deeper.

This kind of voice can evoke the protective instincts and enthusiasm of the elderly, and it is clear that someone in the earpiece has already put themselves into the role.

"Jack, will you be my brother or sister?" Lyle tried to express his excitement quickly, as Snowball was scratching its little paws on his knee, making him feel itchy.

"Gender? So far, I haven't loaded the relevant personality, so I am currently either asexual or both."

“That’s great,” SS’s voice whispered in Lyle’s ear. Lyle thought to himself that there was no need for translation. “I should be able to ask that guy to let me participate in Jack’s personality programming.”